Thought for the week - 22 March 2026

You may have heard the phrase, “real men don’t cry.” For many years, particularly in this country, emotional restraint was worn almost as a badge of honour. Strength was measured by composure, grief was something to be mastered, hidden away, or carried silently. The so-called British stiff upper lip shaped generations. Thankfully, those assumptions are beginning to soften. Nowadays we understand that the ability to express emotion is not weakness, but honesty. That tears are not a failure of character or faith, but a truthful response to love and loss.

In my pastoral encounters, especially in a hospital setting, I have often found that when people finally allow themselves to weep, it can be a profoundly healthy and healing release. Tears are not the problem, unexpressed sorrow often is. Weeping can come when words are no longer enough. It is perhaps no coincidence, then, that one of the most powerful verses in all of Scripture is also the shortest: “Jesus wept.” In these closing days of Lent, as the Church enters Passiontide, the tone subtly changes, we are invited to look more steadily at the cost of love, the sorrow, vulnerability, and self-giving of Christ.

There are moments when just a few words hold a lifetime of meaning. Those two words of Jesus have spoken powerfully into my own personal experience of grief. Again and again, at bedsides, in quiet moments with the dying and the bereaved, I have returned to them... ‘Jesus wept’... not as an explanation, not as an answer, but as a presence. As a reassurance that God does not stand at a distance from human sorrow, but enters it, fully, vulnerably, and without reserve. I think Jesus wept, not because he lacked faith, but because love cannot remain untouched by loss.

On this Fifth Sunday of Lent, as the Church stands on the threshold of Holy Week, we are invited to linger here. Not to rush ahead to resurrection, not to tidy away grief too quickly, but to stay for a moment with sorrow, with waiting, and with love that aches. In today’s Gospel, we meet Jesus as he is deeply moved, stirred to the depths, this is not a serene or detached encounter. This is Jesus standing at the grave of his friend, feeling the full weight of what death steals from us… presence, voice, touch. Jesus weeps because death matters, love matters, grief matters.

I think this is why today’s Gospel passage is so profoundly consoling. It gives us permission to grieve and it shows us that grief itself is held within the heart of God. And into that space of loss comes one of the most powerful declarations “I am the resurrection and the life.” Yet even knowing this, Jesus still weeps. Our faith does not ask us to choose between hope and sorrow, I think it holds them together. We believe in resurrection, and we still stand at gravesides, we proclaim eternal life, and we still weep. Tears are not a failure of faith, they are the cost of love. Ezekiel’s vision speaks into this same mystery. The prophet is brought to a valley of dry bones, whatever life they once held is long gone. And yet God speaks into that place, “I will open your graves… I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live.” God breathes life into what seems beyond recovery.

For those who wait in hospital wards, those who live at home with chronic illness, those who sit with grief that has no clear end, todays scripture, speaks powerfully of God who enters the places we believe are beyond hope. Saint Paul, writing to the Romans, speaks of the Spirit of God dwelling within us, this is a deeply incarnational vision of faith. God’s life does not hover at a safe distance, in Jesus weeping, we learn that he understands our fragile bodies, tired minds, and wounded hearts. Lent, especially in these later weeks, teaches us to live with these tensions.

In my hospital ministry, I often meet people whose world has narrowed to a single room, a single bed, a bedside table, a place of uncertainty. Yet, again and again, I witness how alive love remains present, in the quiet squeeze of a hand, in a whispered prayer, in someone keeping vigil through the long hours of the night. These moments are holy. Jesus wept and in doing so, he revealed that God’s power is not opposed to vulnerability, indeed, it is revealed through it. God who calls Lazarus from the tomb is the same Lord who stands beside Mary and Martha in their grief.

Here, at the Eucharist, this mystery is gathered and offered. Bread is broken, wine is poured out, loss and gift are held together. And we hear those astonishing, familiar words… “This is my body, given for you.” God takes what is broken and transforms it. The Eucharist does not deny suffering, it transfigures it. It gathers our grief, our longing, our fragile hope, and places them within Christ’s own self-offering. This is why the Mass matters so deeply, it is where tears and hope coexist. Where waiting becomes prayer, where the Spirit breathes life into those parts of our lives that feels dry and worn.

So today, if you are grieving, grieving a person, a season of life, a body that no longer behaves as it once did, we can remind ourselves that our tears are known to God. They are not wasted, they are held. If you are waiting, or fearful of what lies ahead, hear again the voice of Christ, steady, compassionate, and close… “I am the resurrection and the life.” Not distant, not abstract, but present, standing beside us, weeping with us, and gently calling us toward new life.

As we continue our journey through Lent, this week, may we trust that God is breathing new life where we least expect it. May we discover, that in the Passion of Christ, God himself has stood in our place's of grief and wept. Amen